The accomplishment of rights, obligations and other expectations: attending to the lived details of classroom order to consider the ethnographic grasp of elusive emotions

This paper explores some of the possibilities of an ethnomethodological sensitivity to ethnographic research in educational settings. The main argument is that focusing on the lived details of educational encounters as reportable phenomena of order allows for an analytical take on the challenge of ethnographically reporting possible ‘elusive’ emotions. The paper analyses a naturally occurring interaction in a primary school classroom in Wales, where a teacher fails to provide the classroom code needed to access and complete a digital assignment. The data, presented in the form of detailed ethnographic fieldnotes enhanced by the transcription of video and audio materials, enables the examination of an instance where classroom members encountered and resolved an instructional problem. Thus, exploring how an attention to classroom order – and the way it is ongoingly produced, challenged, and maintained by the participants – opens a window to consider the ethnographic grasp of ‘elusive’ emotions.